


Freezing Points

by Ryuchu



Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 15:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13126293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryuchu/pseuds/Ryuchu
Summary: The spot next to you is cold and empty, just like it always is. Just like it shouldn’t be.





	Freezing Points

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas Eve!

The sound that wakes you is an all too chipper and familiar chiming. Your brain is sluggish to respond, the sudden and rude awakening expected but entirely unwanted. As you grab blindly in the general direction of the sound, eyes still unwilling to open and doom you to reality, you feel something shift behind you. Suddenly, the warm, languid haze of being woken from a blissful dream is replaced with the hot, prickling buzz of panic. Your eyes shoot open as you quickly grab the phone, flicking the screen to snooze the alarm.

For several seconds you don’t move, don’t even breath. You have become a block of marble, waiting to see just how the whims of fate’s hands plan to sculpt you. Behind you, you hear sleepy muttering. In response, your heart jumps immediately into your throat. You concentrate all your thoughts on a singular wish, somehow hoping that you haven’t run your luck dry all the times you narrowly escaped death this past year.

Please. Please don’t wake up.

As you hold your breath, you hear the muttering resolve back into slow, measured breathing. It’s only after several seconds that you allow your own breath to escape, its shaky and shuttering tone a stark contrast to Mishima's sleeping breathing at your back.

Seems there’s a little bit of luck for you after all.

Or maybe not.

Maybe this is just the final punishment for a game you had thought won.

Moving slowly and with forced calm now, you pull your phone to your face, the LED screen casting its emotionless glow and informing you of your fate. In 9 minutes and 32 seconds (31…30…29…) you have to be out of this bed and out the door.

God how you wish you could just snuggle back into bed; how you wish you could wrap your arms around your boyfriend, hold him close, assure him that you love him, that none of this is a lie or a prank or a mistake. You want to listen to him whisper your name – hesitant, unsure, laced with the unspoken question if this was _really_ okay – until the tone started to shift, the hesitancy replaced with assuredness, uncertainty becoming enthusiasm, and the question going unasked because you both already know the answer. Over and over again. It wouldn’t matter how long it took. The two of you would have time.

You wished you could. You so wished you could.

But…

8 minutes and 46 seconds (45…44…43…)

A bit longer. Just a bit longer. Surely you’re allowed to challenge fate that much after saving the whole of humanity from itself.

Carefully, you roll onto your side so you’re facing Mishima.

You find yourself smiling as you look at his sleeping face, the usual worries and concerns that accent his features and serve as his constant companions nowhere to be found. His hair is matted into the pillow, seeming to form almost a halo around him, his hands held protectively near his face. He looks so peaceful, no trying too hard to make sure you’re happy, no worrying that every touch or kind word is the one that will shatter this illusion.  Someday you’d like him to be able to wear an expression like this even when he’s awake. You know he’ll get there.

But will you be at his side when that happens?

Will he forgive you?

Hell, if the positions were reversed, you’re not sure you could forgive him. It's unfair to expect him to do something you couldn't yourself. But still, the hope in your chest won't listen to the logic in your head. It never does.

You tell yourself to stop as you reach out your hand towards him – that doing this is only making it harder for yourself – but your brain will have to wait. Soon enough you’ll be forced to listen to it as it pulls you out of bed (8 minutes and 17 seconds…16…15…), but until that time your heart guides your hands. Gingerly, you brush your fingertips against his hair, the light bristling sending sparks shooting across your fingertips. The energy draws your hand down to his cheek as you stroke it gently, loving the feel of his skin against yours. Suddenly, you feel your breath catch as, even in sleep, he leans into your touch.

Your hand shoots back as if you’ve been stung.

Stung by your own stupidity.

You shouldn’t have even turned around in the first place. You knew that would only make an already impossible task even more difficult; it would turn Mishima from a human into an angel you could never abandon. If only you could be the suave, unfazed Phantom Thief Mishima still sometimes believed you to be instead of just another high school boy. Angel in his bed or no, Joker would certainly be able to walk out of here, head held high, assured that he was doing what he must. Assured that he was seeing his justice to the end.

You just want to stay here forever.

Hit snooze a thousand more times and never look back.

However, as you continue to stare down at him, he makes an unexpected loud snoring noise and readjusts his position, settling his cheek directly into a pool of drool collected on the pillow. You can’t help but smile and bite back a snorting laugh as suddenly all the angel imagery seems to not quite fit right.

A lot of bit imperfect. All too human, just like you.

But you can’t put him before everyone else. This is the only way you can save them and it means possibly losing him; it means that maybe he’ll never say your name in the way you want. After all, you’re abandoning him, aren’t you? You’re betraying his trust, aren’t you? You’re hurting him just like the never-ending stream of bullies he’s had to face up to this point, aren’t you?

Only it’s worse this time because you’re supposed to protect him; you’re supposed to love and trust him and _tell him these things_.

But if you had, you know he would’ve stopped you.

And you can’t let that happen. If you stop now, everything you sacrificed and worked for will be lost; everything _he_ sacrificed and worked for and believed in will be lost. Surely by betraying his trust in one way you’re fulfilling it in another. Surely.

Surely…

7 minutes and 35 seconds (34…33…32…)

Even though the attic is heated, the sudden chill as you remove the blanket hits you like an artic blast. It takes every ounce of willpower to swing your feet out of bed and set them on the floor.

Step one is the hardest. That’s what people always say, isn’t it? Get moving and the rest will follow, like a perpetual motion machine. However, as you pull yourself to a standing position, joints locking into place and the chill settling heavier in your bones, you can’t help but feel like that’s utter bullshit. Step one is just the prelude to everything only getting worse.

You try your best to pad silently along the floor, avoiding the floorboards that you know squeak (Have you really lived her that long? Do you really know it that intimately?) as you make your way to where you’ve laid out an outfit. You had told Mishima earlier tonight that it was for your Christmas date, which had earned you a blush, stuttering response, and no further questions.

Of course who would ever think ‘Christmas date’ meant ‘Leaving me behind without a word to go turn yourself into the police’.

As you pull your pajama shirt over your head, you can’t help but wince as a hot, flaring pain in your left shoulder contrasts sharply against the winter night air. The police station meant bruises, shouting, needles, drugs; a dizzying concoction of half-recollected shreds of memories with the only commonality being the pain that strung them together. It would be different this time. Nijima-san would protect you. You had to believe that or else you wouldn’t – _couldn’t_ – go through with this.

Suddenly, the new shirt you’re pulling over your head feels suffocating. You have to get it off. It’s trapping you. In a panic, you pull it down, reaching blindly towards your phone, looking for a lifeline.

5 minutes and 59 seconds (58…57…56…)

You watch the seconds tick by as you take a breath for four seconds, hold it for seven, then exhaled for eight – it was a technique Mishima had taught you recently that he had read about online. With each breath, you feel your heartbeat slow and you can’t stop a wry, self-deprecating smile from crossing your lips. If only Mishima knew what he had taught you was helping you abandon him.

Moving slightly faster now, you pull on your pants and shoes, trying not to linger too long on one action or thought. Focus on what needs to be done; focus on what _has_ to be done. However, as you head for the stairs, checking your timer once again (4 minutes and 6 seconds…5…4…3…2…), you can’t help but pause.

One last look.

You can’t leave without seeing him one more time.

Because who knows when you’ll next have the chance.

Slowly, you turn to look at him and find him in the exact same position as before. However, now that you’re further away, you can't focus on the small details – how you can see his gap tooth ever so slightly in his open mouth, how long his eyelashes are, how his hair has grown longer and now tickles at his cheeks, how calm and peaceful his face is. From this distance, it’s all lost to you and you can’t help the pang that sends shooting through your chest.

It’s not fair that you have to be the one to do this.

It’s not fair that you have to be the one doing this to him.

It’s not fair.

But this was what you were fighting to change. This was why you can’t stop now. Instead, you have to leave him with a prayer that he’ll forgive you someday playing on your lips.

As you descend the stairs one at a time (slowly, carefully, don’t want to make any noise and wake him up) each step pulls your further from the comparatively warm attic into the unheated café downstairs. You feel your body react in kind, heat seeping from you until you reach the first-floor landing and you can’t suppress a shudder any more. Usually when you left in the mornings, Sojiro was already downstairs, prepping the café for the day, the smell of coffee and curry permeating everything.

Today, however, you’re alone and you only have 2 minutes and 38 seconds (37…36…35…34...33...) left to you.

You tell yourself to move, to get going, to get it over with. However, your body suddenly feels frozen to the spot, the hand you had placed almost absentmindedly on the railing as you walked down now acting as an anchor. You can’t stop your eyes from wandering to the attic again, where you know Mishima is safe and warm and dreaming.

And here you are, destroying that.

Gather all the logic you like, justify it all you want, but you’re still abandoning him. You’re keeping him out of the loop like you have for so much of this adventure. Always to protect him, protect him, protect him, but maybe you’re just making excuses. Aren’t couples supposed to trust one another and make decisions together?

Yet here you go off again on your own and who knows when you’ll see him again.

But you have to.

You have to.

Let go of the railing. Walk across the café. Go out the door. Go to the train station. Meet up with Nijima-san. Simple steps, simple directions. A grade schooler could do this.

You have to.

1 minute and 25 seconds

24…

23…

22…

21…

20…

19…

Even if you’re frozen, you have to go. You can’t stay here. You know you can’t. You won’t do anyone any good here. You have to save them. Your last act as leader.

You let go of the railing and each step across the floor feels like it takes a lifetime when in reality, you know it’s only a few seconds. As you pull open the door, the bell announces your departure, but no one bids you farewell. When you step outside, the full force of a frosty Christmas Eve night settles over you as you make your way to the train station. In the distance, you can hear the sound of one Christmas song or another floating through the city, but your mind is too locked up to figure out which.

Right as you board your train, chipper chimes start issuing from your pocket.

0 seconds.

Time to wake up.

The spot next to you is cold and empty, just like it always is.

Just like it shouldn’t be.

You ignore the few looks from the other passengers in the car and let your alarm play all the way into Shibuya


End file.
